The present invention relates generally to the field of protective equipment and, in particular, to a new and useful protective jaw pad for sports or other protective equipment, and most particularly to a jaw pad for football and other sports helmets.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/476,534 filed Jun. 2, 2009 for a PROTECTIVE ARRANGEMENT, to the co-inventors of the present application, is incorporated here by reference for its showing of the construction, materials and placement of impact absorbing pads comprising inner and outer sheets having alternating protrusions that form an impact absorbing pattern in the space between the sheets. An important impact absorbing feature of these pads is that each protrusion of one sheet has a flat peak that is fused to the other sheet. In this way both sets of protrusions begin to collapse immediately upon receiving an impact to start resisting the impact by there deformation as the protrusions are compressed.
Although very useful for most areas of the head, a more gradual collapse dynamic may be preferable in other areas of the head, such as at the sides of the jaw of a person wearing the helmet.
Examples of jaw pads for helmets can be found, of example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,060,855 to Rappleyea for PAD FOR PROTECTIVE HELMET; U.S. Pat. No. 6,370,699 to Halstead et al., for JAW PAD FOR HELMET; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,934,971 to Ide et al. for FOOTBALL HELMET.
A need remains for a protective jaw pad that has improved shock absorption characteristics.